At 11 p.m. on March 26, a man driving on the Northwest Fifth Ring Road in Beijing crashed his car into a roadside fence near the exit of Xianghongqi Bridge. The car caught on fire but the man was rescued from his car. However, his three-year-old son who was left inside the car died in the fire. Afterwards, the man, who had apparently forgotten that his son was in the car, said, “I've really forgot my son! It was half an hour later that I remembered my son was still inside the car!”

According to Beijing Daily Messenger , a reporter rushing to the accident scene saw a heavily burnt out car with its frame exposed skewing on the road. Both the car's body and the iron made fence that was hit suffered severe physical distortions. From the emblem of the car, one can roughly discern that it is a Xiali sedan car.

Little Boy's Face Unrecognizable

Several dozen meters farther down the road was a corpse bag, said by a staff member of Emergency Center, to envelop the dead body of the little boy who sat beside the driver in the car. The face was disfigured by the fire and could not be recognized. But the size of the body suggests that the boy was roughly three or four years old.

Eyewitness said the Xiali sedan car seemed to have bumped into another car before crashing into the roadside fence and catching on fire.

According to Miss Zhou, one of the witnesses, “Some of the passing drivers immediately stopped their vehicles and helped put out the fire. The rescuers then pulled the man out of the car but they failed to pull the boy out.” The man was covered in flames after being rescued, but after they smothered the flames, to everyone's surprise, he ran away towards Xianghongqi Street. Nobody could reach him.

After the man left the scene, he visited Hospital 306 and had more than 20 stitches on his face. The doctor wanted him to stay in hospital for further observation but he chose to return home.

“I Forgot My Son Was in the Car”

A reporter learned that the 32-year-old man surnamed Yin and from Henan Province did not have a regular job in Beijing. Without a taxi driver's permit, he had been driving this Xiali car for income. On the night of the accident, he drove to Shijingshan to pick up his son from his mother-in-law's home. On their way back home, the accident happened.

The man was overwhelmed with grief after learning about his son's death. He tearfully said, “I have been too tired nowadays. I don't know how my car crashed into the fence along the road or how the fire got started.”